EDITORIAL: IRAQ: Tools for the Job

Ahmad Chalabi, who led Free Iraq's delegation to the U.N. early in October, gave a notable speech to the body that did so little to liberate his country. He thanked those who did help: President Bush, the United States, Great Britain. He addressed the ongoing resistance of the losers: "We will not allow a gang limited to mercenaries and terrorists to deprive a person, a society, and a nation of a bright tomorrow." He outlined a vision of that tomorrow, which would not have sounded strange in Philadelphia in 1787: separation of powers, accountability, transparency, federalism, rule of law, and the eschewal of formalized ethnic or sectarian factions. He ended with a challenge: "To those who stood with the dictator and who continue to question the intentions of the American and British governments . . . we invite you to come and visit the mass graves where half a million of our citizens lie, come and visit the dried up marshes, come and visit Halabja where chemicals were dropped on civilians, come and examine the lists of the disappeared. . . . And we the Iraqi people will ask you why you chose to remain silent."

Good question, good hopes. How are the hopes to be secured?

In mid October the Security Council unanimously voted to set its seal of approval on the coalition's reconstruction of Iraq. The United States gave very little, conceding a small political role to the U.N. and requiring the Iraqis to present only a timetable for a new government by December 15, not a new government itself. The Security Council was as graceless as possible, Russia, France, and Germany announcing that "the pace of the transfer of responsibilities to the Iraqi people" should have gone faster. (A lot they cared about the Iraqi people when they were selling arms to Saddam.) The Axis of Weasel will not be sending troops, nor will Pakistan.

The U.N. vote might however shake loose troops from Turkey, as well as international money for reconstruction. Japan has ponied up $1.5 billion for 2004. It gives a symbolic inducement to some politicians in the Labour and Democratic parties, who are unsure whether they can or want to do the right thing.

One day after the Security Council vote, Congress approved most of the administration's $87 billion request for spending on Iraq and Afghanistan, $67 billion of it military. Of Democratic presidential candidates in Congress, Dick Gephardt and Joe Lieberman voted yes; Dennis Kucinich, John Kerry, and John Edwards voted no. Gephardt and Lieberman are in the minority in their party, however -- 118 of 205 House Democrats voted no. True, only 11 out of 48 Senate Democrats voted no -- but negativism found a halfway house there, with the Senate voting narrowly to make half of the $20 billion Iraqi aid package a loan. This was a childish exercise in bookkeeping. Great nations pay their way. If their security is at risk, they pay whatever it takes. If they can't, they are no longer great.

Sen. Chuck Hagel greeted the vote with remarks that were part true, part (as is his wont) obnoxious. "There's a great unease about all this reflected across this land. We are getting deeper and deeper into something that we've never been in before in this part of the world." In this part of the world is boob bait. Yes, Senator, we have never been in Iraq. But enemies have not struck lower Manhattan for two centuries either. New realities require new responses.

President Bush must however address unease as it arises. Winston Churchill famously asked for the tools, promising that he would do the job. Bush now has all the tools he will get from the U.N. and from Congress. He must convey several not easily harmonized points: that progress is being made in Iraq; that American losses there are, in historical terms, eminently sustainable; that these losses may well continue until a final handover to Iraqis is made, which must not be soon. Finally he must convey that the Terror War is still only begun. Many a bombmaker (Iran) and bankroller (Saudi Arabia) is still out there.

That's what leadership is about.